


Running out of Time

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Angst, Anime Spoilers, Brother Feels, Brotherly Love, Canon - Anime, Character Study, Drugging, Emotional Hurt, Episode 23 spoilers, Gen, Human Sacrifice, Introspection, Religious Guilt, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: Set during Episode 23.Rin doesn't know why he's being led up to the top of True Cross Academy. All he knows is that it can't be for anything good. Even so, he trusts his brother to come to his rescue and sort all of this out. It's a long way up, though - plenty of time for doubt to creep in.Yukio has no idea why Rin is being led to the top of True Cross Academy, either. All he can do is pray that he runs fast enough to find out before it's too late. It's a long way up, though, and he finds himself having to leave some things behind - among them are his excuses.





	

They were halfway up the building and he still had time.

Rin didn’t know exactly what was going to happen to him, but he knew it was nothing good. These exorcists and priests hadn’t had a good reason for throwing him in that cell, and so their reason for taking him out was probably worse. He’d heard murmured talk of rituals. He’d heard whispered talk of sacrifice, but adamantly refused to believe it. It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t get that far.

Yukio would sort it out.

Of course, Rin could have fought. He could have struggled. He might even have made it, or at least punched through his cordon of guards and made a break for it from there. But no, that wouldn’t be right. He had made a lot of progress in controlling his flames, good progress. He still wasn’t sure he could keep up that control when fighting so many. People would definitely get hurt. People might even die. And that wasn’t worth it, for a situation that Yukio would probably smooth over anyway. He would be upset at Rin for acting so rashly, for not having faith in him. So Rin would just wind up in trouble all over again.

Sometimes it felt like there was no getting out of trouble. Sometimes it felt like the entire world was waiting for Rin to trip up and provide an excuse to smack him down. Sometimes it felt like Yukio was, too. But he was still Rin’s brother, and he made Rin want to try harder.

He would wait patiently. He would trust. And Yukio would sort this out.

The hallways were quiet. The lights were off, and the light of the setting sun slanting in through the windows cast strange shadows on their faces. Most of the doors were locked, including the ones granting access to stairwells. The old man leading them along always had a key, but every second he spent fumbling with the locks was another second for Yukio to catch up.

Rin had once thought that the only good school was a closed and empty school. Now, with no sound but that of footsteps and murmurs as he was marched to whatever they thought his fate would be, it was unbelievably creepy. All he had were his thoughts, now, and they weren’t especially happy. He wondered what had happened to the others. He wondered if they were still out there fighting.

How many more demons could be left? How many more demons  _would_  be left, if Yukio had his way?

He wondered if they were wondering what had happened to him.

They were three floors down from the roof, and he still had time.

But did he? Rin tried to shove the thought away, but it wouldn’t quiet so easily. He remembered Yukio’s eyes when they had argued in the forest. Even back when Rin had first confronted him, just after their dad died, his brother’s eyes hadn’t looked like that. They had been cold, angry, but…they hadn’t been quite so  _detached_  back then. When he’d aimed that gun at Kuro, it had been like he was winding up to swat a fly. The only time Rin had seen a flash of something like life in his eyes had been when Yukio had swatted him aside, instead.

He knew Yukio hated demons, although he hadn’t appreciated until today just how much. Besides, if Yukio hated demons  _that much_ …how could there be any way he didn’t hate Rin?

What if he wasn’t dreading the possibility of Rin slipping up? What if he was waiting for it, just like everyone else?

No. Don’t think about that. Just because Yukio had put him in that cell didn’t mean he knew Rin had been taken out of it. Besides, he was the  _Paladin_ , now. If he told these other Exorcists to stop, then they would. Right?

The old man at the front of the procession opened one more door. Red, ruddy light flooded down the steps, into the narrow hallway.

They were marching him up onto the roof, and he was running out of time.

“Wait!” Rin said. They were inside the stairwell leading up and outside, a narrow space that left them all crammed together. The men and women around him paused, but just for a moment. Then they made frustrated noises, and took hold of him to try and drag him along. He tried to dig in his heels without flaming up. He was strong, but they outnumbered him, and he found himself unwillingly staggering up a step. “ _Wait_ , dammit! I want to talk to my brother!”

His instincts were screaming at him to burn, to let himself be set aflame and take them all with him. But no, they were still humans, he didn’t become an Exorcist to burn humans like…

But as he looked from figure to figure, they didn’t seem to have faces. They didn’t seem human at all. The way the light stabbed down through all of them into such harsh relief, turning them into rough shadows that continued to manhandle him up the steps without hearing his protests.

“Let me  _go_ , you bastards!” Well and truly panicking now, Rin tried to tear himself free, tried to claw and kick. All that came of that was that he lost his footing entirely, and then his captors were able to heave him all the way up the stairs and out onto the roof. “Let me see Yukio!  _Where is Yukio_?!”

But Yukio wasn’t here. Yukio couldn’t hear him. His vision started to go blue, and in that moment, Rin couldn’t really regret it happening.

Unfortunately, the exorcists turned out to have been waiting for this moment. Rin felt himself grabbed from behind by what must have been five different people, and the weight was such that he was forced to his knees with his arms pinned behind his back. Some cried out in pain as his flames gnawed at them, but they still moved fast, too fast.

Rin saw movement in the corner of his eye, a split second before he felt a cloth pressed hard against his face. A sickly-sweet scent flooded his senses, cloying and suffocating. He kept trying to break free, he kept trying to scream at them, but that just meant he breathed it in faster and for a moment he was in class and Shiemi was telling him all about how a poultice of blessed rosemary and lavender could make demons sleepy…

What a thing to think about, at a time like this. As though his mind were trying to escape and leave his body behind.

It certainly felt as though his body no longer belonged to him. Rin knew he had gone boneless in the grip of his captors, knew that the blue edge to his vision had faded, but he couldn’t feel it. The world tilted and he knew he was being lifted, but there were shadows eating at the edges of his eyes and he knew that he wouldn’t be seeing anything for more than another few seconds.

Another few seconds was enough. Rin barely had the strength to lift his head, but he did, and saw that he was being marched across an enormous magic circle set into the rooftop. He lifted it just a little further, managed it for just a second, and saw the St. Andrew’s Cross on the other side. Its restraints were dangling loose and empty. It had an expectant and hungry air to it.

Rin’s last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was the inescapable realization that he was going to be sacrificed and that Yukio was out of time.

*  *  *

He had never wanted this to happen.

He had wanted Rin to be safe. He had wanted to make Rin  _human_  again. He had only wanted to take care of his brother, nevermind if he had to burn the world down to do it.

Maybe he shouldn’t have locked Rin up where he had. But it was their  _grandfather_ in charge of the Vatican, now. The one who had first proposed this plan and told Yukio the good it could do for Rin. Surely that should have meant he would keep Rin safe, too. Right?

Yukio had gone to see Rin, intending to apologize. Intending to explain. He knew that he should have done that at the start, but god, so much had happened so  _fast_. He’d just wanted it all over and done with. He’d trusted that Rin would understand when the dust settled. If his brother got mad at him along the way, it was nothing compared to how grateful he’d be to be human again. Right?

But he hadn’t been able to shake the look in Rin’s eyes. And eventually, when most of the rest of his forces had finally been forced to rest anyway, Yukio had marshalled his courage and gone to speak to his brother.

Which was just as well, because it was then that he found Rin gone. He otherwise might never have known until…

It wasn’t too late. It  _couldn’t_  be too late.

But True Cross Academy was a very tall building with a lot of stairs to climb. Yukio simply didn’t have enough excuses to last that long, even as he raced frantically ever upwards. No wonder he'd gotten so good at lying to his brother, when he'd had all this practice at lying to himself. 

Yukio served the Vatican, but he wasn't sure he'd ever believed in God. He still prayed, then, as he raced up the stairs, step by step, floor by floor. He prayed to God to give him enough time. If he could only reach Rin in time, Yukio would be a better brother from here. He would try even harder to keep Rin safe, he would never let him out of his sight again, he would never let anyone take him away no matter what they said, he would tell Rin that he  _loved_  him still and always had...

He was halfway up the building. He had to get there in time. Yukio didn't know what he was going to stop, but he knew that there was no good reason for them to have taken Rin out of his cell without telling Yukio first. He'd done all of this to save his brother's human soul, never realizing until now that the Exorcists would never see him as anything but just another demon. Their grandfather should have stopped them, but he was an old man, maybe he hadn't known, either. Maybe this...this  _genocide_  had left the order with a taste for blood. Maybe Rin had turned out to have more enemies than even Yukio had anticipated and they'd decided to take their chance. 

Reasons didn't matter. He would get there in time to save his brother, he would tell his grandfather what these bastards had done or tried to do, and then he would use his power as the Paladin to cut them all down.

This had all been for Rin. Everything had been for Rin. He'd wanted to be strong enough to protect Rin. His father had said that he could be. His father had trained him to be, and here Yukio was, about to fail at the only task he had ever dedicated himself to in his life. If Yukio was an exorcist, if he fought the demons of the world, Rin would never have to. If Yukio could defeat any enemy that came to hurt Rin, then Rin would never have to know about his true nature. Rin was supposed to stay human. Rin was supposed to stay safe. All of this was for the sake of fixing a mistake he'd let happen all those months ago.

He was three floors down from the roof, and there was a sound growing louder at the edge of his hearing. 

He was two floors down from the roof, and he realized the sound was Rin screaming.

 _"Rin!"_  Yukio cried desperately, but Rin wasn't here, Rin couldn't hear him. 

He was racing up the last flight of steps towards the open door to the roof. They'd left it open. Red, bloody light lit his path. Yukio couldn't breathe for fear, couldn't hear anything but the sound of Rin screaming in agony. 

Whatever these Exorcists had planned to happen was happening. Even so, Yukio refused to believe that he was too late to stop it. 

 


End file.
